Anglican-Catholic confusion

Yes, Rod, this news is examined here at: firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/10/20/pope-anglicans-liturgy-welcome/

How does this differ from "Anglican Use"?

In two ways: it is world-wide, rather than peculiar to the United States; and the new Anglicans-become-Catholics will have their own ecclesiastical authority from among their own previously-Anglican ranks. They will not be under the jurisdiction of the local Latin-rite Catholic bishop.

The "ecclesiastical authority" will be either a bishop (if the previously-Anglican bishop is unmarried) or a senior priest (if married). Married priests becoming Catholic under this provision may be ordained as Catholic priests while remaining married, but married bishops will not be ordained as bishops (I presume that married bishops may receive priests' orders under the provision, but I don't know that). This grants an exception to the general rule of celibacy for Latin-rite priests, but maintains the Church's custom (which (as you know) exists in both East and West) that bishops are to be celibate.

Interesting news. I attended an Anglican Use parish in Houston for many years and have mixed feelings about this--more to do with the culture that seems to exist in these places than with the Anglican inheritance in Christianity.

What is the future of these priests and their ordinariate? What will the next generation of priests look like? Will they be married? Where will their children worship? How does one (lay Catholics, seminarians) "enter" this diocese? This was my big question when I attended the AU place in Houston and they were raising money for a Church building--what's the future here? Has Rome created a diocese within the Roman Rite with married priests in perpetuity?

Sorry, that should have been Appalachian "prof." Beliefnet no longer recognizes me and I have to re-type my moniker whenever I comment. Also, Beliefnet comboxes tell me that both the word "Beliefnet" and "comboxes" are wrong.

Seems like a win-win for Canterbury. Send the dissidents packing and let the Anglicans get on with the business of being Anglicans instead of faux-Catholics or faux-Evangelicals. If you want to exclude women and gays from the priesthood and the bishops, scamper off to the Vatican and let us move ahead with the business of being Anglicans.

The problem with this is that there are a whole bunch of Anglicans, like me, who are constantly being told by our Catholic friends that "sooner or later you're going to swim the Tiber, it's just a matter of time" blah blah blah. And we tell them no, no, no. There are clear doctrinal issues involved; it's not just liturgical differences.

How does making allowances for liturgical differences help Protestants convert to Catholicism? Aren't their deeper issues involved?

"How does making allowances for liturgical differences help Protestants convert to Catholicism? Aren't their deeper issues involved?"

As a former Episcopalian, now Catholic, with a great deal of appreciation for my heritage (if not for periodic visits by Spong), my answer would be: It depends on the Anglican, but certainly there are deeper issues -- in fact, issues of every possible depth, in some cases up to and including the uniqueness of Christianity, the Deity of Christ, the Trinity and the existence of God Himself.

In other cases, though, the issues are not so deep. Some more Evangelical Anglicans take a low view of episcopacy and priestly ordination; other "higher" Anglicans have a more "Catholic" view. Some take a low view of the bishop of Rome; others take a higher, nearly Catholic view. (Even in Orthodoxy there seems to be some diversity of interpretation on this point.)

Evidently there are a number of high "Anglo-Catholic" parishes sufficiently despairing of the future of the Anglican communion as to regard union with Rome as a practical necessity. Some, like Davis above, will say "Good riddance" as they continue to take the Anglican communion in the direction they regard as "forward." Others with a more Evangelical outlook seem to be caught in the middle, unwilling to go "forward" with all that that implies, but equally unable to go "back" to Rome.

Rowan doesn't really have the stomach for the dissidents and sides with the moderates/progressives. If Catholics poach Anglicans in Africa, his main irritants lose their power and he can settle back into status quo. Rowan believes Anglicanism favors compromise and unity and that there is a role for women and gays in the communion. So this poaching by the Vatican is a win/win. The most radical Africans can go be Catholics, they lose their negotiating position, and suddenly the dissident Americans and Europeans will have to live with being Anglican, or go be Catholics.

Those who decide to stay will have to start playing nice for compromise.

Utter contempt for law suits and court fights over property. We have enough empty/almost empty building to accommodate some alternate jurisdictions, and thereby maintain a degree of loyalty amongst our various brands of Anglicans. The current very high degree of hierarchical control our Presiding Bishop has proclaimed and fights for is not justified in my mind. And the demand for obedience to the US hierarchy is only matched by the rejection of any obedience to Canterbury and the world wide church. And I speak as a liberal.

Hmmm. Good music, good liturgics, good translations, traditional theology and morals, and a permanent provision for married western-rite clergy. This could prove to be a wildly popular option, especially for current Catholics. If the provision for married priests is indeed permanent--does anyone know?--then the whole mandatory celibacy thing could come crashing down as huge numbers of current Catholics enter the Anglican Rite and eventually the Anglican Rite (married) priesthood. Might Henry VIII have saved the Catholic Church??? My head is spinning.

Oh, regarding the (dubious) image of Benedict "eating [Williams'] lunch," "Diogenes" writes:

"The Times of London, with its dizzyingly reckless Monty Python approach to religion stories, headlines its article Vatican Moves to Poach Traditional Anglicans, but the 'poaching' metaphor is an odd choice of images when the 'rabbits' in question have been pleading, sometimes for decades, to jump into the hunter's game bag. After all, the decisions that changed the playing field were made by the Anglican churches, not the Pope."

Link

Benedict truly has a sharp mind.

Newman complained 150 yrs ago that trying to make Englishmen Roman before making them Catholic was a bad idea.

The fact that many of the current English Catholic Bishops wanted to make Englishmen impoverished 1970's theologians/liturgists before making them Catholic was an even worse idea.

Until we see the new Personal Ordinariate in the Apostolic Constitution, I would not assume that it does not report to the Latin Rite Ordinary or Metropolitan or that new Archepiscopal duties will be announced; similarly, it may be a special Ordinariate that enjoys authority directly from Rome, but that authority may be temporary and/or subject to prudential "re-union" with the local ordinary.

Well done, Benedict, well done.

We should all pray for Christian unity, as Christ prayed on the last night of his life here on earth.

Tucked in all this is a new power for the national bishops conferences: the decision to erect one of these ordinariates is in their hands. Tough luck if you're a contrarian bishop in, say, Lincoln, NE.

Hey, can Lutherans join the party? Oh? You mean Trent is still on the books? We're still anathematized? Okay, well, talk to ya later.

Davis,

You're as wrong on this one as you were on Atlanta yesterday.

Anglicans who leave the Episcopal Church can get on with the business of being Anglicans.

Episcopalians who stay can get on with the business of being Unitarians mouthing an Anglican liturgy whose words they may or may not believe and receiving Christian sacraments in which they may or may not believe in remembrance of a Christian savior in whose resurrection they may or may not believe, who may or may not have been the Son of a God in whom they may or may not believe.

That and also the business of shilling for homosexual "rights" and giving dead people's money to Planned Parenthood -- dead people who did more than merely mouth the words of the liturgy and who would not have wanted their church to shill for homosexual "rights" or for the money they left to the church to be given to Planned Parenthood.

Don't let the door hit you on anyone's way out.

Anglicans who leave the Episcopal Church can get on with the business of being Anglicans.

By agreing to abide by the Holy See. That ain't Anglican, that's Catholic not matter how WASPY the hymns sound. They've agreed to play by the Vatican rules and they quit being Protestants. Enjoy the hierarchy, and hand over the keys to those nice buildings on your way over to Rome.

Davis,

"Enjoy the hierarchy, and hand over the keys to those nice buildings on your way over to Rome."

We'll give you 10 dinner theaters-in-the-round (some call them modern churches) for every one of those beautiful churches you have. Deal?

How does making allowances for liturgical differences help Protestants convert to Catholicism? Aren't their deeper issues involved?

And there's the rub! Even for those Anglicans who lean catholic, they're not going back to the unified pre-Tridentine Western Church (an option which, unfortunately, doesn't exist anymore). Instead, they're going to the Roman church of today, with everything that's been added since then - and which, after having added Papal Infallibility, can never, ever be taken back. (That's also why there'll never be union between the Roman and Eastern churches.) Once you write something down, it's absolute, and you can't go back on it without losing face. That's why Anglicanism upholds a balance of scripture, tradition, and reason, in good British fashion. Written creeds, political or religious, seem fundamentally American - which is to say, not Anglican.

Tucked in all this is a new power for the national bishops conferences: the decision to erect one of these ordinariates is in their hands. Tough luck if you're a contrarian bishop in, say, Lincoln, NE.

Actually, that's a misreading of the CDF's "Note." The ordinariates will be erected by the Holy See in consultation with the local national bishops' conferences. The conferences might raise some trouble, but, as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (memory eternal) used to say, we can't turn back the clock to the time when we couldn't turn back the clock. In other words, full steam ahead!

There's nothing stopping the Anglican Church from making it easier for similarly disaffected Catholics (you know, the ones who disagree with their Church's teachings on married priests, women priests, birth control, gay people) - and they are legion - to switch to the Anglican Church.

In the denomination I grew up in, this would have been labelled for what it clearly is - "sheep stealing".

Or, maybe the 2 denominations could simply get together and arrange for a prisoner swap.

Re: Anglicanism's embrace of abortion is a protracted homecoming weekend. Henry would have been proud.

Gerard,

Wrong. "Anglicanism" doesn't embrace abortion. The leadership of one province, the Episcopal Church in the U.S., embraces abortion. The Anglican churches in England, Ireland, the West Indies, and just about everywhere else I can think of, are pro-life, and the Lambeth conferences have historically upheld pro-life views.

My priest back home in Boston is a single-issue pro-life voter, and feels strongly on the issue. I don't think he's alone (his views may be more common on the A-C side of the spectrum where I consider myself). I don't know what opinions about abortion are among the Episcopal laity, but I doubt they are strongly pro-choice.

What to make of this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/6318662/Duke-of-Edinburgh-visits-Catholic-shrine-before-Popes-stay-at-the-Palace.html

Re: As for the Lambeth Conferences historically upholding pro-life views, it was at the Lambeth Conference of 1931 that the Anglicans broke with the rest of Christendom in embracing contraception. The rest of Protestantism followed in the ensuing decades. Contraception is NOT pro-life. The very construction of the word tells one so. Abortion necessarily follows as the fail-safe option when the unwanted conception occurs. I would argue that the Lambeth Conference of 1931 started us down the road to abortion, where 1.8 BILLION babi
es have been murdered since 1960.

I don't want to get too far off topic, but suffice it to say that this isn't correct. Those societies today where contraception is most widely used are the same countries where abortion rates are low- Scandinavia and Western Europe most obviously, but abortion rates have also been falling in much of Latin America as the use of contraception increases. The more individuals and society embraces contraception, the less abortions you will have- since it's pretty clear that more contraception means fewer pregnancies, and fewer occasions for abortions.

If you want to really suppress abortion then of course it isn't _enough_ to make contraception freely available, you also need to make abortion illegal. But contraception needs to be part of the solution.

I disagree with you, obviously, on contraception, and think the decisions in 1930 and 1958 that we took the correct ones. And as long as Rome holds to its current view, there is going to be no big influc of Anglicans into the Catholic church. This doctrinal issue is not one that can be papered over.

As far as Henry's annulment, the fact that the Pope granted a spurious dispensation which he had no right to grant proves (if fifteen centuries of history had not sufficiently proved it) that he was nothing more than a bishop among other bishops: the highest in honor, perhaps, but neither morally nor theologically infallible.

Re: The Roman Catholic Church is suffering from a tyranny from the right. And there has been a huge exodus as a consequence. Have you looked at statistics from Europe, Central and South America? Roman Catholics in North America, and especially the US are largely indistinguishable from other Americans regarding divorce, homosexuality, use of conception, having had an abortion (although most RCs are opposed to abortion)

Actually, Rob, I'm not sure you're right. It seems to me that most dissenting Catholics stay Catholic but just do their own thing in defiance of the official teaching, while most dissenting Anglicans actually _leave_.

I'm not quite sure why.

of course, size, and growth rates, aren't the most important thing. If they were, we should all become Muslims or Pentecostals.

Actually, Rob, I'm not sure you're right. It seems to me that most dissenting Catholics stay Catholic but just do their own thing in defiance of the official teaching, while most dissenting Anglicans actually _leave_. I'm not quite sure why.

Protestantism began with walking out on failed establishments. Like mass protests in France and threats of armed insurrection in the US, it turned into a habitual, 'cultural', posture/behavior.

There have been three reasons the RCC has kept so many congregants until recently. One is the enforced tribal/clan conformity and self-segregation of many of its ethnic groups, many of whom are from relatively recent immigrant groups or unpopular ethnic minorities in the U.S. The second was social nonavailability, in practice, of any alternative institutions for performing the rituals of the life cycle.

And thirdly, its flock were working class people. In the U.S. hopping from one denomination to another, with the recent exception of joining Pentacostalism, is very much a middle class phenomenon. Doing so generally requires the financial means and social independence within extended families, leisure time, and usually the accompanying ego and aesthetic/intellectual/doctrinal demands (in essence: the therapeutic needs) of middle class people.

In New England Catholics- white Catholics- are leaving the RCC in droves. The younger generations of the traditionally working class Catholic ethnic groups there- Irish, Italian, French Canadian, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian- are becoming middle class in large numbers. Their ethnicism has declined as immigration passes in memory with the oldest generations and the Seventies/Eighties nostalgia for their ethnic homelands gets sated and yields to realism, deciding their fate is American, and disengagement. And there are now enough 'nondenominational' megachurches with relatively low denominational judgmentalism there for ex-Catholics and two-timers to go to. I hear these churches are getting deluged with people on their way out of the RCC.

Re: Anglo-Catholics will leave for Rome or, perhaps, Constantinople; some will continue seeping off to other Protestant denominations.

This is one A-C who has no intention of converting to either Rome or Constantinope for the foreseeable future. Much as I prefer the Catholic liturgy to what passes as liturgy at some of the more theologically liberal Episcopal churches, and much as I hate abortion, and much as I am revulsed by the tolerance shown to John Shelby Spong and other pseudo-Christians, I cannot bring myself to affirm "I believe everything that the Catholic Church believes and teaches" (EVERYTHING? Really?) and I have too much respect for the Catholic church to make that affirmation with any mental reservations or crossed fingers.

There are still enough Anglo-Catholic parishes out there that are intent on remaining Anglican, and not RCC or Orthodox, that I think the Episcopal Church (and even more so, the Church of England) still has value.

Re: Arthur supposedly boasted that he had consummated the marriage, but he was a teenage boy under pressure to perform and all the men who testified to what he had said were doing so many years later under the pressure from Henry, who was in love with a younger woman and wanted to get rid of Catherine.

Arthur and Catherine were sexually mature, they had lived together for six months prior to Arthur's death, Arthur boasted about having done the deed, domestic servants swore under oath that they had had sex, and Catherine was watched for signs of pregnancy. If that isn't evidence that they, ahem, 'did it', then I'm a purple cow. Moreover, even if they hadn't 'done it', the rules governing scandal and setting a bad example by doing something that COULD BE forbidden, would normally have prevented the marriage anyway. If anything was bogus, it was the spurious dispensation from Rome that allowed the marriage in the first place. Vatican insiders claimed that the reigning Pope at the time had prepared a decree of annulment and that only the Spanish invasion prevented the decree from coming into effect. Henry's marriage to Catherine was no more valid then Caligula's marriage to his horse.

Scurvy Oaks wrote:

"I haven't followed this closely, but I'm curious about whether these Anglicans really can continue to use the historic Book of Common Prayer. Certain important aspects of it (e.g., the prayer of consecration in Holy Communion) are Protestant to the bone. HC from the 1928 BCP cannot properly be characterized as a mass, if you think liturgical words matter."

Be surprised. There are no magic words. The Vatican has recognized the validity of the Assyrian (Syriac) anaphora attributed to Mari and Addai.

You probably shouldn't argue with Hector on Catherine and Henry's marriage. Yes he's wrong, just like he is on Leftist dictators in Latin America, but he's so assured on this wrong point nothing is going to dissuade him and it's a waste of everyone's time to try.

Anyway I think this won't effect all Anglo-Catholics, many of whom are somewhat liberal on matters of sexuality and gender, but on the specific subset of conservative Anglo-Catholics who agree with Roman Catholics on most or all matters of doctrine. I think this is going to be more expansive than "Anglican Use" which is apparently fairly restricted. I don't know if it's going to mean an actual Anglican-Rite, but that's what it sounded like.

Calling the Catholic Church the "Roman Catholic" church was really a creation of the English leadership.
It is simply a desire to say that you can be Catholic without being in communion with the Vatican, the see of St.Peter and the Magisterium (This is needed for true unity as history shows).
Being Catholic is in the creed and an excuse was needed to justify reciting the creed yet being separate. You can checkout the history/etymology of the phase "Roman Catholic" online. I think youtube.com has something.
Tell me, how does Henry VII become in charge of the Church and still claim to be One, Holy and Catholic? How does he take over and still claim to be united? Promoting the phrase "Roman Catholic" and claiming that following a particular leadership (the original Catholic leadership at the Vatican) is not the way that God would unite the flock.

In order to diminish the esteem of the original leadership a qualifying term needed to be created thus terms like Romanist, Romanism, papist etc... These terms had to be promoted to promote a Church favorable to Henry.
It is sad, but that’s what happened.

It confuses people to this very day, especially the young who thing that Rome is for Romans, England for English-- why not start the London Catholic Church.
Well we see the mess today. Young people think that all titles are the same; that any Church is as orthodox as the other.
It may be too late to fix.
Hard research, humility and courage can lead people back to the Catholic Church founded by Jesus who promised the Holy Spirit to guide it (its leaders) 2000 years ago.
The Catholic Church today can be recognized by its united leadership, electing Peters successor periodically.

God help us all.